Welcome back to my re-read, recap, and reaction to Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series. This post will only have spoilers through the current chapter.
You can find my previous chapter recaps HERE.
Chapter 14: Message From the M’Hael
NOTE: The following chapter summary comes from wot.fandom.com
Point of view: Rand al’Thor
Rand returns to his camp after his parley with the Illianer holdouts. Damer Flinn meets Rand outside his tent and informs him that Torval has come from the Black Tower with a message from Mazrim Taim. Taim is concerned about a large number of Aes Sedai traveling through Murandy towards Caemlyn and possibly toward the Black Tower. Rand assures him the Black Tower is not in danger and they are to leave Aes Sedai be unless attacked. There are now four hundred and forty-eight Asha’man enrolled in the Black Tower. Fifty-one have died or been burned out, ten of whom went mad from the taint on saidin.
Fedwin Morr arrives and tells Rand the Seanchan will move soon with Illian as their target. Rand begins making plans on how to stop the Seanchan and keep them from moving out of Ebou Dar. Morr also mentions that saidin acted very strangely around Ebou Dar (possibly as a result the use of the Bowl of the Winds), sometimes not working the way he expected it to, and making the Taint more unpleasant. Rand recalls his visit through the stone doorway ter’angreal where he received true answers. He asked how to cleanse saidin but the answer was more of a riddle to him and he hasn’t figured out exactly what to do yet. Rand realizes he has spoken out loud and regrets others hearing about his plans. He gives orders for the troops and for the Asha’man in the Black Tower so he can begin his fight with the Seanchan. He gives Narishma some special orders that are not to be disclosed to anyone. Lews Therin comments on his plan and agrees they might work. Rand is glad to hear the voice again.
REACTION:
It’s worth pointing out, IMO, that Jordan is doing some significant *real world* inversion with the way he doles out names in this story.
Good Guy: Lews(ifer) Therin Telamon, a/k/a “The Dragon”
Bad Guy: M’Hael (the Archangel)
Ishamael got his name from Jordan via Abraham’s eldest son, who was not really an overt villain figure in the Old Testament. (Ishy maybe also got the name, via Jordan, from the narrator of Moby-Dick.) Ishy/Moridin’s birth name, before joining the Dark One was Elan Morin Tedronai. El is a name for God and Tedronai is suspiciously similar to Adonai – another name used for God.
I don’t know if Jordan is making some kind of story-telling point with his name choices, or if he just loves inversion. Most of the Forsaken are named in a more straight-forward way, after famous real world demons. It feels intentional though, and purposeful.
Torval arrives from the Black Tower with a message from Taim. My gut reaction is that it makes no sense for him to be so arrogant – toward Rand – but after some thought it makes more sense. He views Rand as powerful but untrained. By comparison, he views himself as highly trained. It’s like the arrogance someone with a PhD and no money might feel toward a guy running a multi-billion dollar business who didn’t graduate college. You can imagine this person in the real world. “If Mark Zuckerberg had finished his degree at Harvard, he wouldn’t be making these obvious mistakes…”
There are a lot of people like this in the real world. Good and bad, right and wrong, success and failure, are all decided by the authority organization that hands out the proper paperwork.
I also wanted to complain about Rand knowing the significance of the Seanchan buying carts in Ebou Dar and immediately deducing that this means they plan to move against Illian. Then I remembered that he hears a voice in his head who gives him accurate information. So you kind of just have to ignore this type of thing with Rand. He’s got “knows more than he should” built into his plot. He’s also clever on a global historical level (considering he’s reborn over and over in the world’s time of need), so maybe it doesn’t matter if he was never taught or trained.
We learn in the last part of the chapter that something about the Bowl of the Winds and how it was used messed with saidin (at least if you’re close to the site on the Kin’s Farm where it was used.) I assume that’s what is going on at least. “Saidin was strange” near the spot where it was used.
Rand accidentally talks out loud about cleansing saidin. This excites the Asha’man (who probably aren’t excited about the idea of going insane and rotting away while they destroy the world.) Honestly he probably needs to figure that out soon. He seems like he’s chewing on a plan, but hasn’t quite worked out the details yet. Jordan doesn’t really give us anything to go on yet, though. We know that the Asha’man kill men who start showing too many signs of madness. It makes you wonder why this wasn’t standard practice in the Age of Legends, too. If they knew enough to try hiding in the Ogier Steddings, shouldn’t this have been the next step once that didn’t work? Failing that… they thought letting men loose to blow things up was better than severing them?
One other thought. We know the red doorframe ter’angreal existed during the Age of Legends. Do we think anyone didn’t pass through and ask about cleansing saidin? Did nobody think of that? Rand obviously thought of it in Tear, but Rand in his previous life didn’t think of it before the insanity set in too far?
Anyway. Unlike the last few books, which hid their big “end of book” conflicts until near their conclusions, this one feels like it’s being set up as a military showdown between Rand’s forces and the Seanchan. That seems like a good change of pace. Jordan served and I usually enjoy his battle descriptions a lot.
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